1. Field of the Invention
The present invention in one aspect relates to a beverage bottling plant for filling beverage bottles or other beverage containers with a liquid beverage filling material and an arrangement for dividing and separating of a stream of beverage bottles or other beverage containers.
2. Background Information
The individual production machines and/or stations within an entire installation or plant of the beverage industry (beverage containerization industry) are, as a rule, connected to one another by container conveyers that are configured and disposed to transport the containers to be treated, such as bottles, cans, or the like, in a predetermined flow.
It is oftentimes necessary during transport of the containers on these transport conveyers, to change the configuration of the stream of containers. Thus, for example, a multiple-file stream of containers that arises, for example, at the output end of a cleaning machine, is re-shaped into a single-file stream in order that this single-file stream can be passed, for example, to an inspection machine.
A further aim resides, for example, in the re-shaping of a single-file stream of containers into a multiple-file stream of containers, as may, for example, be required with the use of storage tables, or on the path of the containers from a labelling machine to a packer structure arrangement.
One problem that also needs to be addressed in the configuration of container transport conveyers is the separation of streams of containers to establish separated multiple-file streams, i.e., diverging streams of containers.
A separation of the streams of containers can be required, for example, in the event that a container stream from a high-production cleaning machine or cleaning station is to be divided or separated for a plurality of inspection machines or inspection stations or structures, that succeed the cleaning machine or cleaning station.
The following essentially only deals with the division of streams of containers into several diverging streams.
The main problems during the division or separation of the stream of containers, that may be present ‘in bulk’, into a plurality of streams include creation of noise, danger of toppling of containers, and the wear that is due to disadvantageous and careless treatment.
A number of suggestions have been made for the solution of this problem or aim.
Firstly, it is known to dispose guide elements that terminate with an acute tip in such a way in a stream of containers such that this stream flows onto guide elements, and the stream is divided into at least two partial streams of containers by these guide elements. Federal Republic of Germany Patent No. DE 2,727,277 of Seitz Werke GmbH, published on Jan. 4, 1979 may be mentioned at this point as an example among such numerous embodiments of this type. The disclosure of Federal Republic of Germany Patent No. DE 2,727,277 is hereby incorporated by references as if fully set forth in its entirety herein.
It is disadvantageous in such embodiments that the containers impact in un-decelerated manner at the guide elements. It is further also detrimental that the containers retain their initial path of movement and are given a new direction of movement only upon impacting at the guide element and/or other containers.
It is a particular detriment that in such embodiments there substantially always arises the problem that containers impact in a straight-line mode at the tip of the guide element. In such cases, the container is initially not guided to any of the partial streams. Rather, in such situations, there arise constantly disruptions of the continuous flow of containers and, last but not least, toppling of one or of several containers. These occurrences are highly undesirable during operation. Furthermore, the aforementioned processes cause high wear and considerable development of noise.
An application according to Federal Republic of Germany Patent No. DE 44 35 199 of Kronseder and issued on Apr. 4, 1996 has also become known. The disclosure of Federal Republic of Germany Patent No. DE 44 35 199 is hereby incorporated by references as if fully set forth in its entirety herein.
Within the scope of this suggestion by Kronseder, there is essentially proposed, for separation of a stream of containers, to dispose a guide element in the stream of containers, with a degree of improvement being obtained thereby that the containers that are introduced are guided in a particular manner to the separating location. For this, the containers are initially passed to a guide channel that has such a width such that the containers align themselves in a quasi two-file stream and with a certain lateral offset.
This aligning of the container avoids direct and straight-line impact of the containers at the tip of the guide element. However, the change of direction of movement of the containers is only effectuated upon impact of the containers at the guide element and/or other containers. The disadvantages described herein above, consequently, are also essentially present in this embodiment suggested by Kronseder.